


The Air Between Two Stars

by charlottelennox



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: A little whump, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drinking, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Magic, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Canon Fix-It, Resurrection, a little fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 06:58:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18516271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlottelennox/pseuds/charlottelennox
Summary: For Thor, Loki was dead for six hundred and nine Earth days.For Loki, it was much longer.Thor, deeply traumatized by the events of Infinity War, cannot go on alone. So he brings Loki back to life.





	The Air Between Two Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I decided that I wanted to write a fix-it before Endgame comes out and ruins all our lives. Some things are pretty ambiguous in this story, such as the exact details of how Thor brings Loki back and how they defeated Thanos. I wanted this to focus more on the little moments Thor and Loki share when they get a second chance. 
> 
> Title comes from the poem ["Top of the World" by Rider Strong.](https://imgur.com/gallery/ouqf0)

 

 

 

For Thor, Loki was dead for six hundred and nine Earth days.

For Loki, it was much longer.

* * *

He comes into his body with a gasp that fills his lungs with more air than they can handle. Promptly, he is given to coughing, struggling; he is choking on air. His eyes fly open as his hands frantically paw at his throat. He can’t remember how to breathe.

Someone heaves him up by his shoulders so that Loki is sitting nearly upright. “That’s it, just breathe,” someone says. The voice sounds as faint and distant as dust; it is nothing. Loki draws in deep, heaving gasps, hands still at his throat. “Breathe,” the voice says again. “Steady, Loki.”

Steady. Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Loki closes his eyes and tries to remember. He draws in his breath and holds it, and then realizes he must exhale. He does this several times, until his lungs feel filled with just the right amount of air and Loki feels less like he is drowning. He collapses on the bed again, everything around him spinning, twisting, blurring all together.

“Loki,” someone is saying. Whose voice is that, where is it coming from? The air around him is so loud, roaring in his ears, and the voice beyond the air still sounds so faint. Loki squeezes his eyes shut, blocks it out.. “Loki, can you hear me? Loki?”

He feels a warm hand grasp one of his own, and another hand come up to rest on his forehead. “He’s burning up,” the voice says.

Someone else replies but Loki cannot make out the words. The second voice is even fainter, muffled to little more than a distant hum.

The hand smooths back some of Loki’s hair. Loki feels sticky and clammy all over. He feels _heavy_. He has become accustomed to weightlessness and now it feels as if he is trapped beneath the weight of a hundred boulders, pressing down on him. His mouth is dry and sour.  His stomach churns and his head throbs.

He’d forgotten pain.

The hands don’t stop touching him. His hair is being stroked and his fingers squeezed. There is only a murmur of voices now, and slowly, Loki dares to open his eyes. Someone is hovering over him, a blurry face etched in sadness, hollows beneath his eyes. The face is only inches from Loki’s. All Loki can see clearly are the eyes - one blue, one amber.  

“Loki,” the face says. Only one of the eyes is wet.  

Loki blinks. He can feel confusion sweeping over his features, and try as he might, he cannot focus enough on the face to determine who it is. Even though the face is very close, his voice still sounds muffled and far away, trapped in the space beyond the roaring air.

The face looks away. “I don’t think he recognizes me. Why doesn’t he recognize me?”

Loki hears the faint hum of the reply and tries to focus. He knows the voice, he knows the face. If he could just _see_ -

“Loki,” the face says gently. “It’s me. It’s Thor.”

 _Thor._ For a few seconds, the name means nothing to Loki - then, all at once, recognition floods through him. “Thor,” he whispers. His voice is little more than a croak that burns his throat, but now he recognizes Thor’s blue eye. Of course. Of course it is Thor.

“You have a new eye,” Loki manages.

Thor laughs. He is laughing and he is crying, and the tears only come from the blue eye. He pulls Loki to him, practically crushing Loki in his arms and then there is no more laughter and Thor’s body is shaking with sobs instead.

“Loki, Loki,” he whispers in a voice so wrought with grief that it physically hurts Loki to hear it.

* * *

Loki doesn’t remember dying. It’s hard to remember _anything_ , but what muddled memories he does have end when he and Thor first saw Thanos’s ship rising above the _Statesman_ , engulfing the stars. Everything after that is lost to him.

“You’re better off,” Thor says, when Loki tells him this.  

“Maybe I’ll remember eventually.”

“I hope you don’t.”

* * *

They are at the Avengers Compound, Loki learns. Thanos has been defeated, but the universe is still recovering from the catastrophic effects of the war. Thor tells Loki about the snap of Thanos’s fingers. Half the universe crumbling to dust. Horror and grief on a scale so immense that it’s a wonder the remaining half of the universe didn’t choke and drown under the sheer weight of it.

The Avengers, fueled on anguish and vengeance, hunted Thanos all over the galaxy. They defeated him and reversed the effects of the gauntlet, resurrecting those who had been made dust.

It was a hollow victory, Thor said; everyone who had been lost to him was still lost and there was no getting them back, no ashes from which they would rise. “I needed you,” Thor says, his eyes searching Loki’s. “I couldn’t be alone, Loki. I couldn’t lose you again.”

“How?” Loki asks. He is sitting up, absorbing everything Thor is telling him. He still feels so disoriented. “How did you bring me back?”

“Magic,” says Thor, simply.

“You’ve never been a mage,” Loki murmurs.

“No,” Thor agrees.  He hasn’t let go of Loki’s hand since Loki awoke and now he squeezes it a little, his thumb grazing Loki’s knuckles. “It wasn’t easy. But I had help.”

There are ancient resurrection spells that Loki has knowledge of, dark magic performed at great risk to the mage. It is possible. It is also extremely dangerous. He never would have imagined Thor would consider him worth such trouble. Certainly, after fooling Thor twice, Loki owed it to him to die for real so that Thor’s mourning would not be in vain.

“Would you like to rest?” Thor asks gently.

 _Very much,_ Loki thinks, and then it strikes him that he _has_ been resting. He starts to laugh. It is a truly pathetic sound - his voice is still rough and hoarse, his vocal chords not quite working right. That only makes him laugh more. It sounds like wheezing.

“What’s funny?” Thor wants to know.

“Resting,” Loki gets out. He gets control of himself, drawing in several breaths until the urge to laugh has faded. “I have been resting all this time. Why am I so tired?”

Thor shakes his head. He leans in, brushing his lips to Loki’s temple. He is being so kind, so affectionate. Loki feels a sudden tightness in his throat that he has to swallow down. “It was a different kind of rest,” Thor says, drawing back.

That is certainly true enough. “How long was I dead?” Loki asks. He looks up to meet Thor’s eyes, finding the blue one shadowed with the remnants of Thor’s grief.

Thor looks impossibly sad as he answers, “Six hundred and nine days. Almost two years. I kept count.”

Almost two years. Loki imagines Thor keeping track of each day that passed, counting one after the other after the other into eternity. “I’m sorry,” Loki says, and Thor lifts his eyebrows. “For dying.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” A muscle moves in Thor’s jaw. He looks down at their hands, their fingers entwined. “You’re back now,” he adds softly.

Yes. Loki has a sinking feeling in his gut. He is back now.

* * *

The Avengers largely avoid Loki. He hears their voices sometimes, drifting through the halls, but Loki’s room is at the back of the compound residence, isolated from anything but deliberate interaction. So far, none of them have sought him out. Loki can’t entirely blame them. They know him as a villain, after all, crazed and hell-bent on ruling the world.

That all feels so long ago.

* * *

He sleeps for days, endlessly tired. He sleeps and it’s dreamless, languid, nothing but darkness. Each time he wakes he is disoriented and confused and it takes him a few moments to remember where he is now. To remember that he is no longer dead, that he is bound once again in a body that still feels strange and too heavy.

On the sixth day, Loki opens his eyes to shadows. It is that hazy, gray time when daylight is still lingering by a thread, not yet swallowed by the darkness. For several moments, Loki just lies there. He stares at the ceiling and thinks back to those last moments on the _Statesman. I wouldn’t worry, brother,_ Thor had said, giving Loki a lopsided smile. _I feel like everything’s gonna work out fine._

It’s the last thing Loki remembers Thor saying. A few moments later, as if summoned by Thor’s words just for the sake of proving Thor wrong, Thanos’s ship had loomed into sight. Loki and Thor had stood, frozen - Loki with terror as he’d immediately recognized whose ship it was, Thor with a wary kind of dread that he’d tried to stifle.

 _Sound the alarms,_ Loki had said, his tone betraying his panic.

 _We don’t know that they’re hostile,_ Thor said, but he didn’t look entirely convinced of his own words. Still, he turned to Loki with forced optimism. _We should see what they want._

 _They’re hostile,_ Loki growled. _Trust me, Thor. I know that ship._

Perhaps, Loki had not yet earned back Thor’s trust, despite having fought beside him against Hela. Perhaps, Thor was simply dumbfounded. He did not react right away. Loki remembers letting out a breath of exasperation as he shoved Thor’s shoulder.

 _Sound the alarms now,_ he’d commanded, in a voice that left no room for argument. _We’ve got to evacuate the people._

Thor had sprung into action then, hitting the alarms and sending ear-piercing sirens throughout the ship. Then they ran for the people, for the escape pods.

The first shot had rocked the _Statesman_ practically sideways, the sound of the explosion ringing in Loki’s ears. He stumbled, bracing himself against a wall.

And that is all. He remembers no more.

* * *

Thor is living in Loki’s room, though he has his own in the compound residence. He was sleeping in a chair beside Loki’s bed until Loki scolded him for it, telling him he needed to get a _real_ night’s sleep in a _real_ bed.

Thor had agreed, and the next thing Loki knew, Thor had set up a cot in the room.  

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Loki says, when he sees it.

“I won’t leave your side,” Thor replies, “unless you want me to.” He suddenly looks uncertain. “Do you?”

“No,” Loki admits. Thor’s constant presence has become a comfort to Loki. Waking up each time is hard enough, especially when he remembers he is once again alive, but the only thing worse would be to wake up and find himself alone.

* * *

He spends nearly two weeks in bed, too exhausted to do more than sit up for a few minutes at a time. His body is weak and his soul is not enough to revitalize it. He is recovering from death, he thinks, and something about that is so funny that he starts laughing, which draws Thor’s attention.

“Loki?” Thor had been sleeping in the chair again, or had simply dozed off. His legs are stretched out in front of him and his hands are folded over his abdomen. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Loki breathes deeply until the urge to laugh is gone. It is replaced with the urge to cry. His temples are throbbing. Each time he sits up, he feels so dizzy and nauseous that he’s certain he will vomit. Loki pulls himself into a sitting position anyway, swallowing hard against the tell-tale tickle at the back of his throat. His vision grows dark and fuzzy, and slowly clears again.

“How do you feel?” Thor, now sitting up, rubs the back of his neck and looks at Loki a bit critically. Loki is certain that he looks awful, but he has not yet looked in a mirror. He’d seen no need.

Loki opts for honesty. “Terrible.”

Thor frowns. “Let me get you some water,” he says, and springs up from his chair. He leaves the room, returning a couple of minutes later with a tall glass of ice water. Loki swallows it gratefully, enjoying the sting of the cold on his tongue and the slide of ice down his throat. Pleasures like these are not found in death.

“Better?” Thor asks, when Loki has finished the glass.

His head still hurts, but Loki nods anyway.

“Do you feel up to eating anything?”

Loki shakes his head quickly. “I’m still nauseous,” he says. “Maybe later.”

“Food might help your stomach feel better,” Thor points out.

Loki doesn’t reply. He looks down at his hands, twisting his fingers together. “Thor,” he says quietly, “what am I supposed to do now?”

Thor tilts his head to the side, his brow furrowing.

“You brought me back to this life,” Loki elaborates, “but I assume I’m not meant to simply sleep and nothing else. Sooner or later, my body will be stronger, and then what? What am I to do with myself?”

Thor presses his lips together. “Live,” he says, as if it should be obvious. “Your life was _stolen_ from you, Loki. You didn’t get enough time. _We_ didn’t get enough time. You can do anything you want now. We have time.”

They have time, but Loki had not asked for it. His life may have been stolen, but like any stolen thing that is not recovered, Loki had learned to carry on without it. Eventually, the loss of the stolen thing is no longer felt as sharply. It throbs from time to time, and fades away again.

“What has become of our people?” Loki asks. “Of Asgard. You were supposed to be king.”

“Can’t be a king if there are no people left to rule,” Thor says, hunching his shoulders. “Not many escaped, and most of those who did scattered during the war. There’s nothing left of Asgard anymore.”

Loki’s chest aches at the words. “You could have built anew. After the war.”

“No.” Thor’s voice is ragged. He rubs his eyes. “I wanted to. It simply felt so wrong - like I should not build anew the place that was meant to be _ours_. I couldn’t find the will to make myself try.”

“I understand,” Loki murmurs. It is so strange to see Thor so broken. Thor looks like he is ready to cry. There are lines of grief in his face that have not faded with Loki’s return. The shadows under his eyes stand out more than ever. Loki tries to imagine it - everyone he’d ever loved was dead, his brother was dead, his people were few, and there was a war to wage.

Loki cannot say that, had he been in Thor’s position, he wouldn’t have given up, too.

Would he have tried to bring Thor back, as well? Tamper with dark magic, seek out his corpse from where it had fallen, drag him back from whatever peace he might have found?

Loki watches Thor for a long time. He would try, he thinks, only because he wouldn’t know any better.

* * *

Walking is very strange.

He and Thor are walking up and down the hallway. Thor has his hand at the small of Loki’s back, and Loki must focus on not toppling over. They move slowly. Loki’s attention is focused on putting one foot in front of the other, in a straight line, balancing all of the new weight of his body evenly.

“It was simpler before,” he says, exasperated, when he stumbles a little. It had been so easy when he was dead; drifting along, nothing weighing him down, anywhere he wanted. Blissful. Tranquil.

“You weren’t learning before,” Thor says, misunderstanding him. “You just always knew. It’ll take a little time, brother.”

Loki swallows hard. “I didn’t mean when I was alive,” he says, and Thor is so startled that he stops completely. Loki stumbles again. He lets go of Thor and lets himself collapse onto the floor, exhausted and frustrated, his chest aching with the loss of something that he cannot name.

He lands hard on his knees, which hurts. Everything fucking _hurts._

“Loki!” In an instant, Thor is kneeling next to him. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Loki’s voice wobbles.

Thor tentatively lays a hand on Loki’s shoulder and feels it trembling. The gesture makes Loki’s control snap, and he starts to cry. “I’m _fine,_ ” he insists, and doesn’t know if he is trying to convince himself or Thor. He supposes it doesn’t matter, anyway. He ducks his head as more tears come, and then he’s sobbing and he doesn’t know why.

He feels Thor wrap his arms around him and pull him close, one hand pressed to the back of his head.

“It’s okay,” Thor murmurs, smoothing down Loki’s hair. “It’s okay.”

It is not okay. Loki feels _wrong_. He is not supposed to be here. Is it truly better for Thor that Loki be here with him, in this miserable world? Is this worth it, for Thor?

Resentment and guilt collide inside of him. He clings to Thor, letting himself cry out all of his awful sadness, and all the while Thor continues to murmur to him, his words blurring together until the sound of his voice simply fades to a hum in the background.

* * *

The first time Loki goes outside is a sunny day. It’s summer on Midgard. The sky is very bright blue and extends for miles and miles, not a cloud in sight. It is immensely hot, but the breeze carries with it the faint scent of honeysuckle.

Loki breathes easier now. He has been alive again for a month. He is used to the rhythm of his breath, the steady inhale and exhale, the expanding of his lungs. He walks easier now, too.

He squints in the sunlight. Next to him, Thor is beaming, as if nothing gives him greater joy than to see Loki in the sunshine. His blue eye looks a bit watery, and that makes Loki shake his head in fond exasperation.

“It’s just a walk outside,” he says, gesturing toward Thor’s face. “No need to get overly sentimental.”

“It’s not that,” Thor replies. They are both wearing jeans, the Midgardian style, and Thor jams his hands into the pockets of his. “Before you died, you said -” He cuts himself off abruptly and looks away, his smile fading a bit.

Thor avoids talking about Loki’s death. Sometimes, Loki asks him how it happened and Thor’s face grows dark with pain or anger or both. _It’s better that you don’t know,_ he always says. _It’s easier not to remember._

 _Nothing about any of this is easier,_ Loki points out.

 _Having you back is easier than not,_ is Thor’s response, and that is when Loki lets the subject go.

Now, Thor has slipped; it is the first concrete thing he’s said about what happened to Loki during that black time Loki can’t remember, the emptiness between Thanos’s ship rising from the depths of space and the moment Loki died.

Loki does not want to let the opportunity pass.

“Tell me,” he says. “Please.”

Thor drops his head, focusing on the grass beneath them as they walk. He hunches his shoulders, withdrawing into himself. “You said, _the sun will shine on us again._ You _promised_ it. I replayed it in my head so many times after you died, wondering if you meant it to be some kind of message, or if you were trying to comfort me … I never really figured it out.”

Thor glances over at Loki’s face before he adds, “But here we are.”

Loki does not remember saying those words, of course. It seems an odd thing to say, but perhaps he had already resigned himself to die and knew Thor would eventually follow him to Valhalla - if, in fact, Loki ended up there. To live eternally underneath the blazing golden sun.

“What else did I say?” Loki asks.

Thor’s shoulders rise and fall. He doesn’t respond.

* * *

It is three months before Thor asks Loki what being dead was like.

For a long time, Loki says nothing. They are in the living room of the residence, seated together on a plush sofa that Loki loves for all its softness. He sinks into the oversized cushions and considers his words.

“It felt like dreaming,” he finally says. “Nothing quite felt real. There was a lot of light, and I felt warm, and … safe, I think. I knew I used to be Loki, but I wasn’t Loki there. I was new. I didn’t really have a form, or weight, but I existed. I could move and think and feel. I was a part of everything, and nothing at the same time.”

It is strange to say the words out loud. Hearing them, Loki has to blink back sudden tears. It had been so peaceful, being dead. There were no lies, there was no pain; the wretchedness of being Loki had been left behind along with his body, and whoever the soul was _underneath_ had broken through and soothed all of the wounds Loki had never figured out how to heal.

If he thinks too much about it - about losing his peace, about being Loki again - he will start to cry and he doesn’t know if he will stop. He has been avoiding thinking about it since he first realized that it had been taken away from him.

Thor had needed him.

Thor had been all alone.

Thor is leaning towards him, listening intently. “Were there others, with you?”

“Yes.”

“Were Mother and Father there?”

Loki shakes his head. “It wasn’t Valhalla,” he says, and he is certain of that. “It was somewhere else. A hidden branch of Yggdrasil, perhaps, for those of us who have nowhere else to go.”

Thor sits back. When he speaks again, his voice is barely more than a whisper. “Were you happy, Loki?”

“Yes.” Loki’s answer is automatic. He looks over at Thor and sees the sorrow cross his face; he reaches out and places his hand over Thor’s.

“I took that away from you,” Thor realizes. “Didn’t I? You were happy and at peace, and I brought you back here.”

“Yes,” Loki says again. He slides his fingers through Thor’s, squeezing them tightly. “You needed me.”

Thor’s voice drops. “I had no right.”

Loki sighs. He shifts his position, leaning in towards Thor and pressing his forehead to his brother’s so that Thor must look up to meet his gaze. “Don’t think about it,” he advises. “I don’t. What’s done is done, okay? We were always meant to be together, brother, in life and in death. You did what you needed to do.”

Thor is crying, the tears coming from only his blue eye. The sight makes Loki want to cry, too. “Loki,” is all Thor gets out before he drops his forehead to Loki’s shoulder. Loki pulls him close, breathing in Thor’s warmth and the smell of lightning and earth and rain that clings to Thor’s skin.

* * *

Loki notices that Thor rarely smiles. When he does, it’s a flicker or a flash, gone again before it has time to brighten his face. There was a time when Thor was always smiling, always laughing - carefree and golden, Asgard’s treasured prince.

“How did we end up like this?” Loki asks.

Next to him, Thor shrugs. They’re laying on Loki’s bed, their arms intertwined, holding hands. Thor is still warm like the sun. “Bad luck, I think,” he answers. “Or prophecy.”

“The Norns must hate us.”

“Maybe we deserve it.”

Loki turns onto his side, facing Thor. Thor’s gaze is on the ceiling as he continues. “Asgard was made from subjugation and death. We slaughtered innocents and built our golden city on their graves. From Bor, to Odin, to me …” Thor lets out a short laugh. There is nothing amused in it. “Warriors, murderers, it’s the same thing. Don’t you think?”

Loki has never heard Thor speak like this. Chills skitter along his spine. “You’re not a murderer, Thor.”

“Aren’t I? How many Jotuns did I slay that day, the day we marched into their realm to seek revenge for _nothing?_ I think about that a lot,” Thor admits. “If things had gone differently that day, how much of what followed could have been avoided? You might never have fallen, never have ended up with Thanos.” He swallows hard. “You might never have died.”

“Perhaps,” says Loki. The chill settles at the base of his spine, goosebumps crawling over his skin. He wonders how many days, out of six hundred and nine, did Thor spend going over and over the chain of events that led them to the _Statesman?_ How many times, in his mind, had he done things differently?

If Loki could remember his death, would he do the same - analyze his every move, his every mistake, turn back time in his head and make a different choice?

It would drive a person crazy, thinking those things. Loki focuses on breathing while he gathers his words. “It could have happened anyway. A number of different ways, different choices … all leading to the same road. It’s not our place to wonder why.”

Thor makes a low noise in his throat. He turns over so that he and Loki are now both laying on their sides, facing one another. They are sharing the same pillow. Thor’s hair smells like birch trees in summer, and Loki closes his eyes to breathe it in. “You’re right,” Thor says, and Loki opens his eyes to see Thor reach out. He runs his fingers along Loki’s jaw, thumb brushing over his earlobe. Loki shivers a little. “It doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”

Loki shakes his head silently. Thor’s fingers rest in the hair at the nape of Loki’s neck. “No,” he says aloud. “We’ve been given a second chance, brother. Are we to spend it lamenting over things we can’t change?”

It is Thor’s turn to shake his head. “You always were the wise one,” he says ruefully.

“Don’t you forget it.”

* * *

They get extremely, ridiculously drunk. Loki has been alive for six months and doesn’t remember the taste of mead, but Tony Stark has an impressive collection of liquors and they drink all of it, gradually moving from the living room to the kitchen to the floor beneath the bar, each of them swigging from a bottle.

They have the residence to themselves. The team is hunting down an assassin in Lithuania, or somewhere. There aren’t many missions, these days, but Thor doesn’t go on the ones that do pop up.

“They’ve got it,” Thor says simply. _They_ being Tony Stark and Steve Rogers and Wanda Maximoff and everyone else. “I’m retired.”

Loki does not understand how one can retire from being a hero. “I’m not a hero,” is Thor’s answer, when Loki points this out.

“Giving up isn’t _what heroes do_ ,” Loki says pointedly, arching an eyebrow.

Thor smirks and sips from his bottle. “Fuck you,” he says, and it’s the first time Thor has truly dropped his guard, treating Loki once again like an irritating younger brother rather than something made of glass. It makes Loki smile.

They are sloppy drunk. Loki’s head is spinning, heavy, and he’s focusing very hard on not slurring his words. Thor, meanwhile, has his legs drawn up and is resting his head against the wall behind him, eyes closed. His bottle dangles from his fingertips.

“Do you remember,” he says, without opening his eyes, “the first time we got drunk together?”

Loki has to think for several moments before he laughs. “Do you mean that time on Vanaheim when Eiji kept sneaking us mead?”

“Yes, and you got so sick that you spent the next week in bed, recovering,” Thor returns.

“As opposed to vomiting my entire meal on the floor in front of everyone,” Loki shoots back. He takes a long swallow of his liquor. “Mother was _so_ angry.”

“More at Eiji than at us, though. We were but innocent children, after all.” Thor’s smile is just-this-side of devilish. “How were we to know?”

“That innocent act didn’t work then, and it doesn’t work now,” Loki says, rather fondly. He feels so much love for his brother in this moment. Thor is so beautiful and so _sparkly_. He decides to say so. “You are so sparkly,” he declares, and drinks more liquor.

That makes Thor open his eyes. He lifts his eyebrows at Loki and then laughs, shaking his head. “Perhaps we should cut you off, brother.”

“I’m rather fine. And I’m serious. You’re shiny, like your heart just … _shines_ out of you, even when you’re sad. You have this _light_ . I used to hate it, but … I love it now. I love _you_.” Loki drops his gaze and brings his bottle to his lips, casually, as if it’s every day that he tells Thor he loves him though in truth, he cannot remember the last time he did. Perhaps before he died, but of course, he doesn’t remember any of that.

Thor is quiet for so long that it makes Loki nervous. When he dares to lift his gaze again, he sees that Thor’s face is a storm of grief and love combined, like rain showers on a sunny day. A few tears have slipped from his blue eye. “Thor?” Loki asks.

Thor shakes himself a bit and tips his head back. He drinks the entire rest of his bottle in one swallow and then wipes his mouth. “I love you too, Loki,” he finally says, and looks Loki in the eye when he says it. “More than life.”

That makes Loki’s throat tighten. “More than death, too,” he points out, and Thor lets out both a laugh and a sob.

“More than death,” he agrees, and pushes himself up to his feet. He wobbles for a moment and then grins as if he’s performed some great, heroic feat. Loki watches as Thor reaches for one of the few remaining bottles of liquor from Tony’s bar. They’ll have to replace all of this, Loki thinks distantly. Tony is going to murder them.

Well. It would hardly be the worst thing that ever happened to Loki. Or to Thor, for that matter. Loki nods to punctuate that thought, and drinks some more. His own bottle is nearly empty. “Grab one for me, too, brother,” he says. “If there’s any left.”

Thor drops down to the floor with a groan, cradling four bottles in his arms. He carefully lays them out: three full and one half-full. “Take your pick.”

Loki chooses the one filled with clear liquid and reads the label on the bottle. Vodka. He adjusts his position slightly as he opens the new bottle and frowns at Thor. “I can’t feel my ass,” he announces. “How long have we been sitting here?”

“Awhile, but I’m not moving. The tile is so cold,” Thor replies, slouching against the wall. “It’s nice. Nice and shiny.”

“Very well.” Loki takes a long swallow of vodka. It is certainly not his favorite of all the liquors they’ve drank this night, but nor is it the worst. It does the job, at any rate. “You never told me where you got your new eye,” he adds.

“From a rabbit,” says Thor.

“I beg your pardon?”

“After the _Statesman_ was destroyed …” Thor pauses. He is already halfway through a bottle that looks to be whiskey. “I got picked up by a ship. I had hoped the explosion would kill me, but I really am too unlucky for that. Fate wanted me alive then. Anyway … the crew on that ship were a bunch of moron aliens, but the rabbit was kind. I grew quite fond of him and the tree.”

Loki has no idea if Thor is drunkenly rambling or if this story is actually true. “The tree?”

“The _flora colossus_ ,” Thor explains.

“Oh.” That makes sense, then. “Carry on.”

“They accompanied me to Nidavellir, where I went to seek Stormbreaker so that I could kill Thanos. On the journey, the rabbit gifted me this eye.”

“It’s the wrong color,” Loki points out, resting his head on the cabinet behind him.

“The humans have a saying: _beggars can’t be choosers._ Better an eye the wrong color than no eye at all.” Thor lifts his bottle in something resembling a toast, so Loki does the same. They toast to the amber-colored eye, to the rabbit and the tree, and to Stormbreaker, taking long sips after each.  The vodka burns pleasantly at the back of Loki’s throat. He feels like he is floating.

“It’s like being dead,” he tells Thor, stretching his legs out in front of him.

“What is?”

“How drunk I am right now. I can’t feel my body.” Loki lets out a giggle. “It’s almost the same as not having one at all.”

“Hmm.” Thor is nearing the end of his bottle. He downs the rest and sets it down hard on the floor. “I should rather like death, I think, if it’s as you describe. Certainly I should like not having a body. I feel very heavy right now.”

“It’s the whiskey,” says Loki. “It’s heavier than vodka. Hits you differently.”

“Is that true?”

Loki shrugs. “How should I know?”

“Trickster,” Thor accuses.

“Featherhead,” is all Loki can come up with.

Thor grins. “ _Cow._ ”

“Oaf,” says Loki, and reaches for the half-filled bottle. He speaks his earlier thought. “Tony is going to be furious when he realizes we drank everything.”

“Probably.” Thor just grins and opens the last bottle.

* * *

Winter has fallen on Midgard when Loki remembers his death. It hits him like lightning, a terrible shock vibrating throughout his body, shocking him to his bones. He gasps and his hands fly to his neck, almost expecting to find it crushed beyond the ability to heal. He touches solid skin, firm bones. It doesn’t make him feel better.

The memories flow into him all at once, without warning, filling up the black space with vivid flashes of purple agony and blue death. _Oh, god,_ Loki thinks, pressing his fingers to his temples as if that will stop the images from leaking in.

His head throbs. His body collapses.

Loki begins to scream.

* * *

Thor finds him curled up on the floor. He can’t stop screaming, even when Thor is suddenly there and is wrapping Loki in his arms. “Loki, Loki,” Thor says and his voice is so soothing that the note of panic is almost imperceptible. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

Loki feels like he is choking. “I can’t breathe,” he gets out. He inhales deeply but no air comes in. It makes him panic and he frantically drags in more air. His lungs still feel empty. “Thor, I can’t breathe, I can’t _breathe_ -”

“It’s okay.” Thor’s voice cuts through the panic. He is rubbing Loki’s back, making small circles between Loki’s shoulder blades. “You’re okay, Loki, just slow down. Try it slower.”

The edges of Loki’s vision are beginning to grow dark, as if he is going to pass out. Choking, choking, the darkness of death sliding in, hearing Thor’s muffled, grief-wrought scream before Loki succumbs entirely - he can’t seem to slow down, his whole body is trembling. “I can’t, I can’t,” he gasps.

“You can.” Thor is still soothing, still calm. “Just slow down. You’re safe. You can breathe. Breathe slow, Loki.”

He repeats his words, over and over again, in that low, soothing voice until Loki manages to catch a real breath. His lungs fill and expand, in and out again, until Loki’s breathing has evened out and his heart rate has slowed down. Once the worst of it is over, Loki immediately begins to sob.

“I remember,” he tells Thor, through his tears.

Thor straightens. He moves so that he can lean against the wall and pull Loki toward him so that Loki is practically in his lap. Loki drops his head to Thor’s shoulder and Thor runs his fingers through Loki’s hair, fingernails dragging along his scalp. It feels good, relaxing, and makes Loki draw in another breath to slow down his tears.

“What do you remember?” Thor whispers.

“Dying,” Loki whispers back. “On the ship. I remembered what Thanos did and suddenly it was like I was dying all over again. I couldn’t _breathe_ ,” he says, and saying the words almost send a brand new wave of panic over him. Only the sensation of Thor’s fingers carding through his hair holds it at bay.

“I’m sorry,” Thor says, and he truly does sound sorry. “I hoped you would never remember.”

“It was so horrible, Thor.” Loki’s voice wavers.

“I know it was. But it’s over now, Loki. We fixed it, made it right. Thanos is gone and he’ll never hurt you again.” Thor murmurs these words against Loki’s temple and Loki breathes them in, a cool balm over the searing hot panic. “You’re safe now. It’s over.”

 _Safe now._ Loki repeats the words to himself, over and over, as Thor holds him close and runs his fingers through Loki’s hair. _Safe now. Safe now._

* * *

They are rarely without one another anymore. Their souls are woven together and when they’re too far apart, the threads tug stubbornly, refusing to break. They have little desire to be apart, anyway.

In the month called February, Loki is finally ready to explore the world outside of the compound. Thor takes them into the nearest small town and they walk down narrow sidewalks, their boots crunching over salt and old snow.

They peruse little shops, looking at the displays in the windows. They stop at a cafe and drink huge cups of hot chocolate. Loki drinks three while Thor watches in fond amusement. After that, they browse in the little bookstore on the other side of the square. The books are very simple, but Loki likes the way that the shop smells of musty old pages and just a hint of cinnamon.

When twilight falls, little twinkling lights flash in the bare branches of trees. “They look like fireflies,” Loki comments to Thor. “Do you remember?”

“I remember,” Thor replies, and pulls Loki close to his side. They slide their fingers together and think of muggy summer nights, catching fireflies in Frigga’s garden.

The breeze blows, stinging their cheeks with cold.

* * *

“Do you intend that we spend the rest of our lives here?” Loki asks.

Thor shrugs. “I don’t know. I suppose I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“This world will change,” Loki points out, “over and over and over again before we’re dead. We’ll not know anyone here a century from now.”

Thor presses his lips together and looks away. He twists his fingers together. “What’s your point?”

Loki nudges Thor’s knee so that Thor must look back at him. “I think it’s time that we think of building anew.”

Some of the color leaves Thor’s cheeks. He holds Loki’s stare for a few moments before he blows out his breath and shakes his head. “I’m not a king anymore, Loki.”

“Don’t be a king, then.” Loki tilts his head. “You said there are some of our people left, though. Out there, scattered. We can collect them, and we can start over again. Do things differently, however we want.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin looking,” Thor says.

Loki leans back and studies Thor. Thor is still twisting his fingers together, a muscle moving in his jaw. His blue eye is uncertain, agitated. Anything that was left of the king of Asgard was destroyed on the _Statesman_. Loki understands it fully now. If he had watched, powerless, while Thor was murdered -

He shudders and takes a deep breath, warding off a chill. He reminds himself that he can breathe, that he is safe. Closing his eyes, Loki inhales and exhales again and, a few moments later, the fear passes.

“The people who died on that ship,” Loki says, quietly, “died defending Asgard to the very last. Asgard has always been the people, brother. It’s what we were going to do before Thanos, start anew. After losing so much, don’t you agree it’s time we get something back?”

“I already did,” Thor replies. “I got you back.” He swallows hard and pushes his hands through his hair. Then, in a much quieter voice, he admits, “I’m scared.”

“So am I.”

Thor sighs. He stares at Loki as if he is searching for the correct answer, the solution that would turn everything right again. Loki knows that this is the only way they can continue to stay together and truly _live_ the second chance they’ve been given. If they can’t go home, they must make a new one.

Loki thinks of the floating lightness of death, thinks of the tranquility of the space between worlds. A hidden branch of Yggdrasil, a place for those with nowhere else to go. Perhaps, Loki might get it back someday.

It will be a long time until then. He wants to spend that time in whatever Asgard he and Thor can create.

“Please,” Loki says.

Thor’s features soften. He reaches out and cups Loki’s neck. “All right, brother. If it’s what you truly want. We’ll do it together.”

Loki lets out his breath in a relieved huff and impulsively reaches for Thor, putting his arms around him and pulling him in. “Thank you,” he murmurs.

* * *

It is summer, and the sun is shining brightly overhead. Thor has said goodbye to his Avenger friends, who helped him bring Loki back and accepted Loki’s presence, but had never quite befriended him personally.

“Do you think we’ll ever come back here?” Thor asks. He and Loki are standing together on the lawn, looking back at the compound where they’ve spent the last year.

“Perhaps,” Loki says. “It’ll be here for a long time.”

“Yeah.” Thor nods and swallows hard. He takes one last, lingering look and then he turns to face Loki. He holds Stormbreaker in one arm and reaches for Loki with the other. “Ready, brother?”

Loki presses himself close to Thor’s side, wrapping his arms around Thor’s waist. Thor, who’d pulled him back from death, who’d made such a thing bearable when it felt like the end of the world. Thor, whom he loves and who loves him, more than life and death together.

“Ready,” Loki answers.

Thor smiles. He lifts Stormbreaker towards the sky and, in a blinding flash of rushing rainbow light, they are gone.

* * *

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! Comments make my soul sing. Feel free to say hi to me on tumblr at @iamanartichoke.


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